Author Topic: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco  (Read 965 times)

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Offline kevindavis007

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California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« on: June 29, 2016, 12:08:39 pm »

California's high-speed rail project increasingly looks like an expensive social science experiment to test just how long interest groups can keep money flowing to a doomed endeavor before elected officials finally decide to cancel it. What combination of sweet-sounding scenarios, streamlined mockups, ever-changing and mind-numbing technical detail, and audacious spin will keep the dream alive?


Sold to the public in 2008 as a visionary plan to whisk riders along at 220 miles an hour, making the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a little over two and a half hours, the project promised to attract most of the necessary billions from private investors, to operate without ongoing subsidies and to charge fares low enough to make it competitive with cheap flights. With those assurances, 53.7 percent of voters said yes to a $9.95 billion bond referendum to get the project started. But the assurances were at best wishful thinking, at worst an elaborate con.


The total construction cost estimate has now more than doubled to $68 billion from the original $33 billion, despite trims in the routes planned. The first, easiest-to-build, segment of the system -- the “train to nowhere” through a relatively empty stretch of the Central Valley -- is running at least four years behind schedule and still hasn’t acquired all the needed land. Predicted ticket prices to travel from LA to the Bay have shot from $50 to more than $80. State funding is running short. Last month’s cap-and-trade auction for greenhouse gases, expected to provide $150 million for the train, yielded a mere $2.5 million. And no investors are lining up to fill the $43 billion construction-budget gap.


Now, courtesy of Los Angeles Times reporter Ralph Vartabedian, comes yet another damning revelation: When the Spanish construction company Ferrovial submitted its winning bid for a 22-mile segment, the proposal included a clear and inconvenient warning: “More than likely, the California high speed rail will require large government subsidies for years to come.” Ferrovial reviewed 111 similar systems around the world and found only three that cover their operating costs.


This research should surprise no one who pays attention. Even advocates acknowledge that almost all high-speed rail systems need ongoing subsidies.


But the California High-Speed Rail Authority steadfastly maintains that its trains will be the exception: “HIGH-SPEED RAIL IN CALIFORNIA WILL NOT REQUIRE OPERATING SUBSIDIES,” a 2013 fact sheet declared, in all caps. The authority has to keep up the charade or admit to breaking the promises that persuaded voters to back the project in the first place.


Read More: http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-28/california-hits-the-brakes-on-high-speed-rail-fiasco
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2016, 04:01:33 pm »
"High speed" it is not...it will be sharing some existing track and they're also not going VFR direct from LA to SF...they're looping the damn thing up through the Tehachapi's via Bakersfield, through the Antelope Valley and then through the Acton-Santa Clarita area.  Talking about boring a tunnel through the San Gabriels for the stretch from Antelope Valley down into the LA Basin.

They've had public meetings/forums about this and just about everywhere they go, they're told to stuff it and yet continue to ignore the residents of the locations this thing is planned to go through...they're determined to get their graft...er, train.

Gawd, I loathe this boondoggle...and these bastards just keep lying about the cost as well...some more realistic estimates have it over $100B in cost.
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Offline kevindavis007

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2016, 04:45:43 pm »
"High speed" it is not...it will be sharing some existing track and they're also not going VFR direct from LA to SF...they're looping the damn thing up through the Tehachapi's via Bakersfield, through the Antelope Valley and then through the Acton-Santa Clarita area.  Talking about boring a tunnel through the San Gabriels for the stretch from Antelope Valley down into the LA Basin.

They've had public meetings/forums about this and just about everywhere they go, they're told to stuff it and yet continue to ignore the residents of the locations this thing is planned to go through...they're determined to get their graft...er, train.

Gawd, I loathe this boondoggle...and these bastards just keep lying about the cost as well...some more realistic estimates have it over $100B in cost.


To be honest with you rail in America is dead..
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2016, 05:17:29 pm »

To be honest with you rail in America is dead..

At times like this I miss Willie Greene.  He really loved the choo-choos at TOS.
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2016, 05:36:00 pm »

To be honest with you rail in America is dead..
Passenger rail, yes. But as an efficient mode of moving large masses, rail will be a viable way to haul freight for a long time.
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2016, 05:37:06 pm »
The Greyhound bus from San Antonio to Dallas TX is faster than AMTRAK

Offline kevindavis007

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2016, 05:41:02 pm »
Passenger rail, yes. But as an efficient mode of moving large masses, rail will be a viable way to haul freight for a long time.


I stand corrected..
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geronl

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2016, 06:50:39 pm »
Passenger rail, yes. But as an efficient mode of moving large masses, rail will be a viable way to haul freight for a long time.

As long as head-on collisions are kept to a minimum (we had one of those in Texas yesterday)

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2016, 07:14:56 pm »
As long as head-on collisions are kept to a minimum (we had one of those in Texas yesterday)

OMG, that's terrible!  Did the Engineers survive?
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2016, 07:52:09 pm »
OMG, that's terrible!  Did the Engineers survive?
3 missing, presumed dead from what I read last...
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2016, 08:03:51 pm »
3 missing, presumed dead from what I read last...

 **nononono*
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Offline kidd

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2016, 08:34:40 pm »
The title suggested (to me) that California finally killed this stupid idea.

I read the link and found this:

Quote
When the Spanish construction company Ferrovial submitted its winning bid for a 22-mile segment, the proposal included a clear and inconvenient warning: “More than likely, the California high speed rail will require large government subsidies for years to come.” Ferrovial reviewed 111 similar systems around the world and found only three that cover their operating costs.

Then this:

Quote
The truly damning revelation, however, isn’t just that Ferrovial’s research flatly contradicts the California authority. It’s that the company's warning on subsidies disappeared from the version of the bid posted on the state’s website.

This is fraud.

geronl

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2016, 08:41:10 pm »
OMG, that's terrible!  Did the Engineers survive?

Texas train crash wreckage continues to smolder; 3 missing presumed dead

Quote
AMARILLO, Texas --
Three missing crew members from the two freight trains that collided head-on in the Texas Panhandle are presumed dead, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Wednesday.

Emergency personnel at the scene of Tuesday's collision about 25 miles northeast of Amarillo have moved to a recovery operation, DPS Sgt. Dan Buesing said. Each train had a two-member crew. One man jumped in the moments before the crash and remained hospitalized Wednesday with injuries that are not considered life-threatening.

BNSF got some 'splainin' to do... how did these 2 trains get on the same track...

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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2016, 08:47:56 pm »
The title suggested (to me) that California finally killed this stupid idea.

I read the link and found this:

Then this:

This is fraud.
Forget it kidd, it's California.
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Re: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2016, 09:08:43 pm »
Forget it kidd, it's California.

Yeah, there's no way in Heck little Jerry lets this toy train go from his grasp.
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